Li Bai: How Could He Buy Liquor? 李白：何来买酒钱？

唐代大诗人李白的一生，可以说是始终与酒相伴。李白一生喝了多少酒，没有人做过专门统计。他自己在《襄阳歌》中说："百年三万六千日，一日须饮三百杯。"这虽是夸张之词，但也看出"诗仙"的酒量，一天喝半斤八两，恐怕不在话下。
Li Bai, the great poet in the Tang Dynasty, spent his whole life with liquor. No one knows how much liquor Li Bai drank in his life. In his poem Song of Xiangyang, he said, "During the 36,000 days in 100 years, I must drink 300 cups of liquor every day." This is a kind of exaggeration, but we can also see that he was a heavy drinker. It must be a piece of cake for him to drink 50 gram of liquor a day.
这就出现了一个问题，像他这样天天喝、月月喝、年年喝，到哪里去弄买酒钱？想当初，以《饮酒》诗著称于世的陶渊明，就是因为家贫不能买酒，才不得不"篱边终日叹空觞"。窦革在《酒谱》中说，陶渊明曾连续九天没有酒喝，所以凡有人送酒给他，他都要掺上些水，以便多喝几天。直到临死，还在叹息："但恨在世时，饮酒不得足。"
The question is, if he drank liquor every single day in every month and every year, wher did he get the money to buy liquor? Like Tao Yuanming who was famous for his poem Drinking Liquor, he could not afford to buy liquor and had to "sigh at the empty cup beside the fence." Dou Ge said in his Liquor Book that on one occasion, Tao Yuanming could not drink liquor for successive nine days. So, when someone sent him some liquor, he would add some water in it so as to drink for longer time. Just before his death, he sighed, "What I regret is that I can never drink liquor to my heart content."
李白的家境比陶渊明好不了多少。他种田不会，做工不能，经商不肯，求官又不得，没有固定的经济收入，只能靠别人的施舍过日子。那么，他靠什么来解酒瘾呢？查一下《李白传》才发现，原来他有两条"酒路"。
Li Bai was no richer than Tao Yuanming. He did not know how to do farm work, could not do manual work, was not willing to do business and could not be an official. He did not have stable income and had to live on people's donation. Then, how could he drink liquor? After reading the Biography of Li Bai, we found that he had two ways to do so.
一是喝别人的酒。凭着李白的诗名，到哪里都有酒喝。他从26岁开始，下长江，经洞庭，赴吴越，至湖北，后又访洛阳，游扬州，奔金陵，赶邯郸，住庐山。去到哪，喝到哪，去一路，喝一路。
The first was to drink other's liquor. He was a famous poet at that time and could drink anywher. At the age of 26, he began traveling to different places such as the Yangtze River, Dongting Lake, Wuyue (the region around Suzhou and Hangzhou), Hubei, Luoyang, Yangzhou, Jinling, Handan, and Lushan Mountain. He could drink liquor on his way.
二是喝公家的酒。在宫里，李白被封为翰林学士，每天除了鸡鸭鱼肉，皇帝又特赐西凉进贡来的葡萄酒一斤。反正不用个人花钱，不喝白不喝。所以李白这三年是可着劲地喝，上顿喝了，下顿还喝。
The second way is to drink the emperor's liquor. In the imperial court, Li Bai was promoted to be an imperial scholar. Besides the poultry, fish and meat, he could have 500 grams of tribute wine from Xiliang specially given by the emperor every day. He did not need to pay money and could drink free liquor. So, in the three years, he drank liquor to his heart content several times a day.
他怀才不遇，愁肠百结。除了喝酒和写诗，他又能去做什么？如今，不得志的人很少，但好喝酒的人却很多。不过千万别忘了，酒还有另一面：喝得太多，会损害身体，要不，李白怎么会只活了62岁？
Li Bai had no opportunity to use his talents and was very sad. The only things he could do were to drink liquor and write poems. Today, the number of people who cannot use their talents is decreasing, but the number of liquor drinkers is increasing. But, don't forget the negative effect of liquor: Drinking too much liquor will harm people's health. Otherwise, why did Li Bai live for only 62 years?